


Times Gone By

by EverFascinated, Nenagh24 (EverFascinated)



Series: Fictober 2020 [10]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Drabble, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fictober 2020, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Near Death Experiences, Spoilers for the first half of the game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:06:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26931853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EverFascinated/pseuds/EverFascinated, https://archiveofourown.org/users/EverFascinated/pseuds/Nenagh24
Summary: Plagued with dreams of war, Byleth wakes to find Jeralt tending to her just like he did when she was a child. Is this just a fever dream or a cherished memory?
Relationships: Jeralt Reus Eisner & My Unit | Byleth
Series: Fictober 2020 [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947883
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	Times Gone By

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the first half of the game, so maybe finish that before reading lol

It was dark and cold, wet and muddy, loud and exhausting. Swords clashed and suddenly it was so hot it was burning, the dry air filled with dust and yet the shouts of two armies meeting still rent the air.

Insults were thrown, prayers whispered under gasps for breath, pleas for mercy ignored in the clamor and she was lost.

Everything was too present, it was everywhere she looked yet she couldn’t understand any of it. When she tried it danced away like the fog in a stiff breeze. 

Who was fighting? Was it someone she knew? Should she be helping anyone?

Could she even help anyone?

Did it even matter?

She stood untouched in the middle of a battlefield and watched both sides fall in droves. Looking down at her hands, she surprised at what she saw, but she wasn’t sure what made them so different to what she expected.

“Hey, kiddo.” A warm voice broke through the muted roars of battle. 

Byleth blinked as the world seemed to freeze around her. It shattered when a firm, warm hand grasped one of her shoulders.

Opening her eyes, she tried to sit up, but the familiar hand pressed her back down to lie in the bed.

“Back with me, kid?” Her father asked, his smile thin with worry. “I thought I lost you there for a bit.”

Her answer stuck in her dry throat and Byleth found herself rolling onto her side as coughs shook her body. She heard gentle murmurs of something comforting, but it was hard to focus on them. A cup of water found its way in front of her and she sat up a little to take some cautious sips as that calloused hand moved along her back, rubbing the space between her shoulder blades.

“Take it easy, you’ve been through a lot.” Jeralt instructed her gently. He helped her take a few more sips before setting the cup down to get her situated more comfortably on the bed. As he moved the pillows around to let her recline more comfortably, Byleth looked around the tent.

It was just like she remembered, but also more. More things, more furniture, more settled. When working with the mercenaries they rarely had time to really dig in to any one location, so most of this probably never saw the outside of his packs. 

Until now.

“How about I make you a deal, hm?” He offered, sitting down at the foot of the cot. “I’ll fill you in on what you’ve missed and you let me know if you want more water.”

A deal heavily in her favor. She smiled at him. He’d always told her never to turn those kinds down.

Taking that as agreement, Jeralt leaned back a bit to stretch out his legs, crossing them at the ankle before starting. 

Byleth smiled drowsily as he spoke of the daring feats and failed pranks performed by members of the company, hands sometimes gesturing here and there to help him tell the stories. The nostalgia of listening to so many bedtime stories in that same tone very nearly saw her drifting off to sleep, but she fought it.

It had been so long since she’d thought about his storytelling that she’d almost forgotten it. Forgotten the way he exaggerated a person’s accent while imitating them to make her chuckle, the way he rhymed a word or three just to see if she’d roll her eyes, the way he put everything aside just to tell her a story.

If she fell asleep now, it was likely she’d wake up and he’d be gone again.

So she listened and she watched.

She was so intent on studying the movements, how he checked in on her to see if she was awake and how he’d lean over at the parts he thought were particularly funny to try and get her to join in on the laughs, that she almost forgot to listen to the stories themselves. 

Or, at least, that was her excuse for not immediately noticing that all the stories were talking about mercenaries that had also died years earlier. 

Byleth’s smile became a little brittle as she thought about it. Of all the stories he told her tonight, not one of them had to do with anyone living.

She looked down at her hands again, she took the time to the scars. They were all there, even the one she’d gotten not a month before in a small training accident. 

That was unusual. In her dreams she never had scars.

If this were a memory, wouldn’t she be younger?

“Dad?” 

He cut off in the middle of his sentence to look over at her.

“Yeah, kiddo?” Something must have shown on her face because he sat up and gave her his full attention. “Is something wrong? Would you like more water?”

He scooted up the bed to reach for the cup at her side, but Byleth stopped him by grabbing his hand.

“Dad, am I dead?” She couldn’t think why she would be, but sometimes life was like that. Not everyone went in battle or after a long illness. Sometimes people just left, some by choice and others because they couldn’t stay.

“Not yet, you aren’t.” His free hand came up to brush the bangs out of her eyes. He gave her a sad smile. “You came pretty close to it though, close enough for this. And you know me, I’ll give you all the time I can spare.”

Tears gathered in her eyes and she reached out, leaning up as much as she could to try and hug him. He pulled her close and tucked her head under his chin just like he always did.

“I’m so proud of you.” Jeralt whispered fiercely into her hair.

“You are?” She asked. Between the tightness in her throat and the way his clothes muffled her words, she wasn’t even sure he heard.

“Of course.” Came the firm response.

Byleth wasn’t sure how long that sat like that, with him patting her hair as she dampened his shirt, but eventually he pulled back. Before he let her go he pressed a dry kiss to her forehead just like he used to after their nightly storytimes. She fought a new wave of tears at the reminder.

“It looks like our time is up for now.” He said, tucking her back under the covers before taking one of her hands in his once more. “Soon you’ll be back with everyone again.”

Not everyone, she wanted to say. Instead she held onto his hand like it was a lifeline.

"I want you to remember that I love you."

She blinked rapidly as the room seemed to darken around them.

"I love you too, Dad." She'd never told him enough in life how much she appreciated him.

"Now, you go live your life as best you can. Your mother and I can wait until your finished." His smile was warm, but his form was blurring a little and Byleth didn't think it was just from her tears.

While she had this chance, even if it was just a figment of a fever or her imagination, she had to ask.

“You’re not mad that I…” her regrets clogged her throat, the biggest one always that she couldn’t save him.

“Oh, kid. Never.” He shook his head and smiled, his eyes roaming her face as if to imprint it in his memory. She did the same, holding tight to his hand even as he continued to fade, taking the rest of the room with him. Fingers slipped through hers and she barely felt anything as he reached up to pat her head one last time.

The transition from the darkness she found herself in took forever and an instant, but she eventually woke up in her own bed with tears in her eyes and his last words echoing in her ears.

“All I ever wanted was for you to be happy and it seems to me that you’ve done it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Did this make anyone else cry? Because I made myself cry. I just wanted some good Father-Daughter content so I hope I provided some of that
> 
> Prompt: all I ever wanted


End file.
